Expedition to discover Amelia Earhart’s plane wreckage begins

Almost exactly a month ago I mentioned that researchers had concluded with a high likelihood of accuracy that famed pilot Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan had crash landed on a reef and lived for a short time on a nearby island. It is believed that the duo lived for a short time on a Pacific island called Gardner Island before succumbing to dehydration and starvation. Artifacts found on the small island led the researchers to the conclusion, but the team wants to find the wreckage of Earhart’s plane.

The researchers have set off on a $2.2 million expedition to use a torpedo-like submersible to search the depths below the reef where Earhart is believed to have crashed. The investigators believe that the wreckage of the Earhart’s Lockheed Electra aircraft lays the bottom of one of the reef walls. A second submersible equipped with cameras will be used to take photos of anything discovered in the ocean depths.

A photograph taken in October of 1937 showed what could be a strut and wheel from a Lockheed Electra sticking out of the water above the reef. We should know in short order when the team arrives and sends the remote-controlled submersible under the ocean to search for the aircraft wreckage. If the wreckage of Earhart’s plane is discovered one of the oldest and most famous mysteries in aviation history will be solved after decades.